request for mobile browser friendly support

[Janx]

I would like to see a mobile friendly version of the site.

I've used my iPhone, and my PSP to browse the site. I'm not looking for absolutely custom support per device, but it would be nice to have a reduced content version.

Namely, a web 1.0 (circa 1995) style where a page shows a menu, or content, rather than packing a ton of different content and functionality on one page.

This makes the page load faster, and reduces the memory used, and increases the chances it won't crash the browser.

For instance, the starting page would show links (a list) for news, forums, wiki, groups, blogs, etc (the stuff across the top).

Maybe show a wide banner for ads across the top and bottom (gotta make money).

all the side bars and such, are really the culprit. They make it harder to read on a mobile device, as there's little screen real estate and such.

If I could get to it, via a URL like "http://www.enworld.org/mobile" that would just about do it.

Mobile devices are becoming more and more prevalent, and I would expect that folks will do more and more of their primary browsing on them, rather than a PC. At least for sites that have "mobilized" versions.

I also realize, that if you checked your web server's logs, it may not look like there are many hits from mobile devices. It's entirely probable that after hitting the site a few times on an iPhone, they gave up, because it's more cumbersome.

Personally, I'm not looking to have an "iPhone" stylized site. I just want it to load simply on the mobile devices I have. This is a problem I've seen on other sites (including xbox.com, to playstation.com as well). Google apps handled it pretty well, though they did fork their code just for the iPhone with a iPhoney layout.

Thanks for hearing me out,
Janx

 

[stonegod]

I'd love an iPhone-specific version (as I browse w/ it here a lot), but its not a deal breaker for me. It the folks that wrote the vboard software had something, that'd be easier, but I don't think our unpaid admins have the time. Could be wrong.

Anyway, it works well on my iPhone, so I'm not complaining.

 

[jaerdaph]

As someone increasingly on the move and tied to his Treo, I think this would be awesome!

 

[Plane Sailing]

I'm afraid you're not likely to see it until/unless there is a no-pain way to do it out of the box in vBulletin!

However - if you only want to read and not post, there is a good option that I used to use with my iSilo offline reader on the Palm Pilot, and that is the archive pages http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive/index.php/ Bookmark that and you have a much more lightweight way of reading threads on the forums while on the go.

I'm now an iPod touch user and I'd love to get the PHB skin reinstated, as black text on a light background is much better for reading on the iPod Touch/iPhone safari than the normal white on black. Still pretty usable though with the safari intelligent tap & zoom though.

Cheers

 

[Janx]

good point about vBulletin. It may be worth checking out vBulletin's code and looking into...I think they're opensource. Seems like everyone would benefit from a lite version.

 

[Arnwyn]

It would be pretty cool to be able to access a decent-looking version of ENWorld on my PSP...